GSK to pay Nabi third milestone for PentaStaph

ROCKVILLE, Md. Nabi Biopharmaceuticals will receive an $8 million payment from British drug maker GlaxoSmithKline following a technology transfer related to a bacterial vaccine, Nabi said Tuesday.

GSK Biologicals will make the payment following the transfer of program expertise associated with the sale of PentaStaph (pentavalant Staphylococcus aureus vaccine), which Nabi sold to GSK for $46 million, including $26 in milestone payments. The expected $8 million is the third of four milestones. The fourth, a payment of $5 million, will be paid upon completion of an early-stage clinical trial of the vaccine that began in December, expected in the next nine months.

“We have made tremendous progress in achieving the PentaStaph milestones by completing three of the four milestone tasks in eight short months following the close of this transaction,” Nabi president and CEO Raafat Fahim said. “We have one remaining milestone task to complete under this agreement before fully realizing the significant value of the PentaStaph asset sale.”